Charter schools are defined by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) as "a public school operated by a group of parents, teachers, and/or community members as a semi-autonomous school of choice within a school district, operating under a 'charter' with the State Board of Education." Since most charter schools do not have…

This book considers the concerns of the different groups of stakeholders in determining the direction of developments in vocational education and the contribution that open, flexible, and distance approaches can make. Chapter 1 introduces the background against which developments in the use of these approaches to vocational education and training…

This book, intended for students planning, exploring, or currently completing graduate school via long distance, is written by two people who themselves completed a doctoral program via long distance. The book is based on personal experiences, an informal survey of people in this country and abroad, and responses from a listserv concerning…

Technology education has a long history of attempting to make female students comfortable with the field. Although there has been limited success in recruiting females into the field, the situation is much more positive than it was 75 years ago, when girls were often forbidden to take "manual training" classes. A 1980 Montana report on gender bias…

The purpose of the study was to compare electronic and traditional versions of a graduate-level introductory research class. Students were permitted to select the instructional delivery type they wanted, with the traditional option offered by one instructor and the electronic option offered by a second instructor. There were 71 participants in the…

In the fall of 1997, a senior level course was taught as an interdisciplinary class for learning the processes in food product development. The course implemented many new teaching methods and technologies. It was an effort between two departments: food science and agricultural economics. Students worked in teams with industry mentors who assisted…

This handbook presents state guidelines for alternative education in Mississippi, which is designed to serve as a learning alternative placement for students who have had difficulty with the regular classroom environment or who have experienced disciplinary problems in the classroom or school. The handbook contains the following sections: (1)…

Self-regulation has long been seen as a desirable but difficult to achieve instructional aim. This is particularly true of online learning, where users have limited instructional support and where attrition rates tend to be greater than in face-to-face teaching. This paper examines the nature of self-regulation, identifying affective and cognitive…

This report documents a study of charter schools in Alberta, Canada. The purpose of the study was to examine the academic achievement of the 10 charter schools in the province. Data were collected from test scores in language arts, math, science, and social studies of third-, sixth-, and ninth-graders; reviews of various documents; and interviews…

Data from a variety of sources were used to examine the status of charter schools in California. Home to 415 charter schools enrolling 157,000 students, about 2.4% of all public school students in the state, California is at the forefront of the charter school movement, with the number of charter schools increasing rapidly. The average overall…

The Margaree Education Coalition and the New Learning Project were formed as a result of a Nova Scotia (Canada) community's fight to keep its local school open in the face of government plans to consolidate schools. It is their belief that stability in public education is accomplished through the accommodation of diverse, community-specific…

Homeschooling, one of the fastest growing educational alternatives, is enjoying increasing respect from educators and parents alike. This is partly because homeschooling children score as well and often better on standardized tests than their publicly schooled counterparts. However, the vast majority of homeschooled students come from the…

Rather than relying on traditional measures of student performance, new admissions procedures for four-year institutions attempt to describe what students know and can do. Current procedures do not reflect integrated curriculum and applied learning, and they penalize multidisciplinary project and work-based learning program participants. Four…

The West Suburban Post-Secondary Consortium (WSPSC) of Oak Brook, Illinois is a not-for-profit organization of collaborating educational institutions that offer courses, programs and degrees in the western suburbs of Chicago. Interactive video is a successful instructional delivery method in the WSPSC, according to the students who took video…

This paper reports on a study that examines legal and policy issues surrounding access to public-school extracurricular activities for home-school students. Chapter 1, "The Problem and Its Background," reviews such relevant issues as the history of choice in America and Illinois, legal foundations, regulatory disparities, research…